Statistical Assessment Service

{{#badges: Front groups}} The Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) touts itself as a "non-profit, non-partisan organization" but its funders are not transparent. It is an arm, or "sister organization," of the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA).

STATS promotes itself as a disinterested, non-partisan guardian of scientific and statistical integrity to often unsuspecting media outlets. It has been surprisingly successful in this guise, with many persons and organizations citing STATS (especially, its stats.org web site), for example, the University of Iowa's Journalism school and the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point as an authoritative or useful resource.

From its inception, however, STATS has repeatedly attacked environmentalists, civil libertarians, feminists and other "liberals." The first director of STATS, David Murray, was not a statistician at all. His academic training was in anthropology, but he was often described in the media as a "statistician" when he commented on various topics.

On its website, they state, "Since its founding in 1994, the non-profit, non-partisan Statistical Assessment Service - STATS - has become a much-valued resource on the use and abuse of science and statistics in the media. Our goals are to correct scientific misinformation in the media and in public policy resulting from bad science, politics, or a simple lack of information or knowledge; and to act as a resource for journalists and policy makers on major scientific issues and controversies."

Funding

The STATS website did not list specific funding sources as of 2008 but states that "we do not take money from industry or industry-related groups". However, Media Transparency lists startup funding for STATS as having come from conservative funders including the John M. Olin Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation and the William H. Donner Foundation. Other funders include Richard Mellon Scaife's Carthage Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Earhart Foundation, John M. Olin Foundation and the Castle Rock Foundation. Media Transparency identifies the group as having gained 34 grants totaling $2,415,000 (unadjusted for inflation) between 1995 and 2009.

In its 2008 Annual return to the Internal Revenue Service, SAS reported that for that year it had total revenue of $75,485, all of which came in the form of contributions gifts and grants.

SAS's IRS return reports that the group's revenue for the preceding four years were as follows:

• 2004: $545,000
• 2005: $100,000
• 2006: $100,000
• 2007: $100,000

STATS & CMPA

STATS is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization but its 2006 annual return to the Internal Revenue Service states that "salary costs for the organization are shared with the Center for Media and Public Affairs. CMPA ... reports the salary costs and files payroll reports under its tax identification number. DCFC is a related organization." (It is not clear what "DCFC" refers to). The report also states that the relationship between STATS and CMPA is one of "common control". because STATS shares the offices (in the pricey "K Street" lobbying district of Washington) and staff of CMPA.

In 2004, STATS became officially affiliated with George Mason University and displays the university logo at the foot of its webpages.

Research STATS is promoting

STATS senior fellow Maia Szalavitz's 2006 book, "Help At Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids" was the first book-length investigation of the billion dollar "tough love" "boot camp" business that preys on parents and teenagers. It helped spur Congressional hearings and two Government Accountability Office investigations. Szalavitz advised Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and GAO investigators before introduction of the bipartisan Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008, which passed the House in the summer of 2008. [2]. Szalavitz' op-ed in the New York Times [3] on this issue prompted a state investigation of one facility, the Elan School in Maine.

In April of 2008, STATS released the results of a survey of climate scientists that showed that "Over eight out of ten American climate scientists believe that human activity contributes to global warming." The study, entitled "Climate Scientists Agree on Warming, Disagree on Dangers, and Don’t Trust the Media’s Coverage of Climate Change" was released on April 24, 2008 and was conducted in conjunction with Harris interactive.

In an October 17, 2006 analysis titled "The Science of Counting the Dead," STATS' director of research, an MIT mathematician, Rebecca Goldin defended the epidemiological methods of the hotly debated Lancet II study on Iraqi war deaths against conservative critics. The analysis concluded that the study’s detractors, "instead of dismissing over half a million dead people as a political ploy ... ought to embrace science as opening our eyes to a tragedy whose death scale has been vastly underestimated until now."

Areas of Interest

The STATS website lists the following as areas in which they have preformed "in-depth analysis"[4]:

• General
  • "College Ranking Mania: The Washington Monthly’s Bizarre Best College List" August, 2006
• Health
  • "What Science Really Says About the Benefits of Breast-Feeding (and what the New York Times didn’t tell you)", June 20, 2006
  • "Toy Tantrums - The Debate Over the Safety of Phthalates", January 30, 2006
  • "Teflon Is Not Forever: Why the Editors of Mother Jones Need To Be Hit Over the Head with a Frying Pan", May 2, 2007
  • "Will a Few Extra Pounds Lead to a Longer Life?", May 24, 2005
• Public Policy
  • "Dueling Numbers on Asbestos Claims", November 10, 2005
• Drugs
  • "The New York Times' Other WMD Problem", August 6, 2004
• Iragi War Deaths
  • "The Science of Counting the Dead", October 17, 2006
• Economy
  • "The Myth of the Declining Middle Class"
    • [5]
    • [6]
  • "How Bad Are Payday Loans?", July 18, 2008

Personnel

Staff

The first director of STATS was David Murray.

Their staff is listed as follows as of January 2008[7]:

• Donald Rieck, Executive Director
• Rebecca Goldin, Director of Research
• Maia Szalavitz, Senior Fellow, has written for the liberal publication The American Prospect.
• Trevor Butterworth, Editor

Officers & Directors

According to STATS 2006 Annual return to the Internal Revenue Service, the office bearers and directors are:

• S. Robert Lichter, President
• Linda Lichter Vice President
• Robert D. Stuart, Jr., Director
• David Gergen, Director
• Newton Minow, Director
• Nell Minow, Director
• Paul Mongerson, Director
• Danielle Strupper, Director

Advisory Board

Their Advisory Board, as of March 2008, is listed as:

• Thomas C. Childers, Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania
• Wolfgang Donsbach, President, World Association of Opinion Research
• Nicholas Eberstadt, Fellow, Center for Population Studies, Harvard University
• Neil Gilbert, Professor of Social Welfare, University of California Berkeley
• Scott O. Lilienfeld, Professor of Psychology, Emory University
• Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, President, Allensbach Institut fur Demoskopie
• Nelson Polsby, Director, Institute of Government Studies, University of California Berkeley
• Harrison Pope, Director, Biological Psychiatry Laboratory, Harvard Medical School
• Stephen Strauss, Toronto Globe and Mail
• Humphrey Taylor, CEO & President, Louis Harris and Associates
• James Q. Wilson, Professor of Political Science, UCLA

Former members of the Advisory Board include:

• Sallie L. Baliunas, Senior Scientist, George Marshall Institute and Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Contact

Center for Media and Public Affairs
and Statistical Assessment Service
2100 L St NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20037
STATS line (202) 223 3193
CMPA line (202) 223 2942
Fax (202) 872 4014
Website: http://www.stats.org